The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded on October 11 to Nihon Hidankyo, a Japanese organiza-tion of survivors of the U.S. ato-mic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, for its “efforts to achi-eve a world free of nuclear wea-pons.”
Jørgen Watne Frydnes, chair of the Norwegian Nobel Commi-ttee, said the award was assigned to the grassroot organization as the “taboo against the use of nuclear weapons is under pre-ssure.” He said the Committee “wishes to honour all survivors who, despite physical suffering and painful memories, have cho-sen to use their costly experience to cultivate hope and engagement for peace.” Efforts to eradicate nuclear weapons have been ho-noured in the past by the Nobel Committee.
The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons won the peace prize in 2017, and in 1995 Joseph Rotblat and the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs won for “their efforts to diminish the part played by nuclear arms in international politics and, in the longer run, to eliminate such arms.” This year’s prize was awarded agai-nst a backdrop of devastating conflicts raging in the world, notably in the Middle East, Ukraine and Sudan. “It is very clear that threats of using nuclear weapons are putting pressure on the important international norm, the taboo of using nuclear weapons,” Watne Frydnes said.

Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, has sent a letter to Pope Francis to convey the “most sincere gratitude” of Catholic leaders and all the Christian faithful in the Middle East for his closeness and compassion.
On the Day of prayer for world peace and fasting to mark the anniversary of Hamas’ ma-ssacre in Israel and the devasta-ting war that has ensued, the Pope also addressed a letter to the Catholics of the region expressing his closeness to the “small, de-fenceless flock” in the Holy Land “thirsting for peace.”
In his letter, published on Friday by the Vatican’s “L’Oss-ervatore Romano” newspaper, Cardinal Pizzaballa thanks the Pope for this “beautiful gesture of closeness and affection” and also for being “the only world leader” who acknowledges the human “suffering of all” remin-ding us of the need “not to lose our humanity”, even in these tragic circumstances.
Referring to the Day of prayer for peace joined by the Catholic communities in the Holy Land and across the world, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem noted that these “weapons of love” are the Church’s response “to the mis-trust that seems to be spreading more and more. “In this context of deeply rooted hatred,” he said, “there is a need for empathy, for gestures and words of love that, even if they don’t change the course of events, bring comfort and consolation.”
Cardinal Pizzaballa recalled that in the past twelve months of war priests, religious men, and women along with volunteers have remained steadfast in serving those in distress, to provide relief and comfort, even at the risk of their lives.
He reiterated the Church’s firm commitment to rebuilding broken relationships and trust between communities and to resist the “logic of evil” that seeks to divide.
“We will not surrender to events that seem to drive us apart, but we will always seek to be thirsty builders of peace and justice,” he said, recalling the example of men and women of all faiths who, even though personally affected by the violence, have had the inner strength to forgive and not to give in “to the logic of hatred.” He expressed his hope that this “small remnant” might provide the starting point for rebuilding relationships.

Synod on Synodality events open to the public gave a glimpse into the private debates happening among delegates and theological experts on the issues of a bishop’s authority and his relationship to the laity in light of synodality.
At the Oct. 9 forum on ”The Role and Authority of the Bishop in a Synodal Church,” hosted in a conference hall near the Vatican, four theologians and a canon lawyer gave presentations on finding and following the correct interpretation of the Se-cond Vatican Council’s teaching on episcopal authority, with frequent citations of the council’s dogmatic constitution Lumen Gentium. Speakers claimed an important part of synodality is implementing the proper under-standing of a bishop’s authority in his diocese, which demands cooperation with laypeople.
Italian canonist Father Matteo Visioli pointed out that ”What power of governance can be en-trusted to laymen and women?” is one of the questions being asked by the synod that, he said, still needs further theological explo-ration. “The problem is, which offices require the sacred orders and which don’t?” he asked in response to a question about changes Pope Francis has made to permit laypeople to hold posi-tions formerly reserved to priests or bishops. The canonist noted that while Pope Francis has drawn practical lines in the sand in some instances, including in the newest constitution governing the Roman Curia, Praedicate Evangelium, ”if he entered into the theoretical line, he would have gotten stuck.”
In his remarks, Italian theo-logian Roberto Repole, arch-bishop of Turin and bishop of Susa, cited paragraphs 38-39 of the 2024 Instrumentum Laboris, which says that a bishop’s powers and ministry do ”not imply his separation from the portion of the people of God entrusted to him” and ”is not the justification for an episcopal ministry that is ‘monarchical…’”
In light of what is written in the Instrumentum Laboris, Repole, who will be made a cardinal in December, said there are different ways to interpret Lumen Gentium’s teaching that bishops have the fullness of the sacrament of holy orders. He argued that a ”synodal” interpretation of the bishop’s ministry — one in which he serves in full cooperation with priests and laypeople — could ”dissolve” some of the isolation and stress faced by bishops around the world and prevent a ”monarchical”-style rule.
A prominent theologian from Argentina, Father Carlos María Galli, argued in his lecture that the bishop is the servant of the Lord, not a ”lord” of the Church, and said a ”novelty” of Vatican II was viewing the people of God as equal in dignity to the Church’s hierarchy. The second chapter of Lumen Gentium, on the people of God, was a ”big revolution” in Church ecclesiology, he said. “These theological foundations should move us to a change of mentality, of mindset.”
In his contribution, Father Gilles Routhier, a French Canadian and theological consultant to the general secretariat of the Synod of Bishops, described the bishop’s relationship to the laity using imagery from the Mass. Just as the celebration of the Mass includes the organic participation of all the parts (priest and laity), so, too, the bishop should view his communion and cooperation in running a diocese, he said. Routhier also criticized the Church’s use of the prepositions ”of,” “for,” or ”at” to describe a bishop instead of the words “in” and ”within.” As written in Lumen Gentium, the priest and bishops, he said, are part of and within the same assembly of the people of God. “We can’t speak of the autonomy of the pastor from the rest of the assembly,” the theologian and Vatican II expert claimed.
Sister Gloria Liliana Franco Echeverri, ODN, addressed bishops directly in her contribution to the forum, exhorting them to be servant leaders and to combat abuse.

Pope Francis has written a personal letter to the 21 men – bishops and priests from around the world – whom he will raise to the Cardinalate at a consistory set for December 8, the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Noting that their elevation to the College of Cardinals will associate them with the Roman Clergy, the Bishop of Rome reminds them that membership in the College “is an expression of the Church’s unity and of the bond that unites all the Churches with this Church of Rome.”
In his letter, the Pope Francis invites the Cardinals-elect “to embody the three attitudes with which an Argentinian poet (Francisco Luis Bernárdez) once characterized Saint John of the Cross, and which are also applicable to us: ‘eyes raised, hands joined, feet bare.’” Explaining these three attitudes, the Holy Father tells the soon-to-be Cardinals that their new service within the Church will require them to “lengthen your gaze and broaden your heart” to see further and love more fervently.
They must keep their hands joined in prayer to enable them “to shepherd well the flock of Christ,” the Pope said, adding that prayer is “the realm of discernment” that helps discern God’s will and follow it.
Finally, the Pope said, they must keep their feet bare “because they touch the harsh realities of all those parts of the world overwhelmed by pain and suffering,” which will demand from the new Cardinals “great compassion and mercy.”
Concluding his letter, Pope Francis thanked the Cardinals-elect for their generosity and assured them of his prayers “that the title of ‘servant’ (deacon) will increasingly eclipse that of ‘eminence.’”

Cardinal Timothy Dolan said on 24 September that Vice President Kamala Harris’ decision to skip the Al Smith dinner, a prominent Catholic charity event in New York, wasn’t a wise political move.
While Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said Harris’ decision to skip the dinner reveals her “anti-Catholic” sentiments, Dolan, who leads the Archdiocese of New York, blamed bad advice.
“Different people are reading motives into it; I don’t know the motives,” he said, speaking on his podcast. “She simply said she’s got to use it for campaigning. This isn’t a campaign event, but it certainly is good visibility, you know, I mean it’s a national audience and everybody covers it; now the news is that she’s not there. So, I don’t know who’s advising her but she’s not getting good advice.”
The $5,000-a-plate charity event taking place on Oct. 17 is hosted by the Archdiocese of New York; the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner has been attended by nearly every major presidential candidate since 1960.
According to Dolan, President Joe Biden had committed to attending the dinner earlier this year before dropping out of the race. Harris’ campaign team, however, reportedly notified the archdiocese on Saturday that she would not be attending the event.
Instead of attending the event, Harris’ team has said she will use the time to campaign in critical swing states, according to the New York Post.

The director of Caritas in Congo was shot and killed by an armed militant group while approaching a roadblock, Caritas Internationalis announced.
In a statement published on social media Sept. 23, Caritas International said it was “shocked by the news of the death of our colleague, Dieudonné Barondezi, director of the Caritas branch in Kalonge, in the Democratic Republic of Congo.”
“Dieudonné was shot in the head on Sept. 19 at a roadblock, in the village of Cholobero, by members of an armed group who demanded he pay the toll, even though, as a humanitarian, he was not obliged to do so,” the Catholic charitable organization said. Barondezi was taken to a hospital following the shooting, where he was declared dead. “Let us pray for him, his family, and all humanitarians worldwide who lose their lives to help others,” Caritas said.
Barondezi’s death is the latest in a string of violent attacks targeting humanitarian aid workers in the country, where armed rebel groups continue to fight against Congolese forces for control of gold and other resources.
According to a July report by The Associated Press, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Congo called for the protection of aid workers in the region where some 170 security incidents targeting humanitarian workers were reported.

Pope Francis waded into the U.S. presidential elections during his press conference on the flight back to Rome on Septem-ber 13, saying of the choice between Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump, “One must choose the lesser of two evils. Who is the lesser of two evils? That lady or that gentleman? I don’t know.
“They are both against life. The one who throws away the migrants as well as the one who kills children,” the pope said. “Both are against life.” Trump has indicated he plans a mass deportation of migrants if he regains the White House, and Harris has promised to try and restore abortion rights nationwide if she is promoted by voters.
Pope Francis said Catholics had to form their consciences when deciding for whom to vote. The U.S. bishops, in adopting a new introductory statement to their quadrennial document on voting, “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship”, were less even-handed in their app-raisal of the two major political parties. Last year, they voted to state that abortion is “our pre-eminent priority” in the 2024 election, repeating phrasing first used in the 2020 version of the statement. Previous iterations of the document had refrained from such explicit emphasis on one issue, because that level of specificity is precisely where conscience formation is required. It is not clear that this year’s federal elections will have any consequence on national abortion policy, given the evenly divided Congress, so making that issue a priority strikes many observers as odd.

Pope Francis took the unusual decision to expel 10 people – a bishop, priests and laypeople – from a troubled Catholic move-ment in Peru after a Vatican inve-stigation uncovered “sadistic” abuses of power, authority and spirituality.
The move against the lead-ership of the Sodalitium Chri-stianae Vitae, or Sodalitium of Christian Life, followed Francis’ decision last month to expel the group’s founder, Luis Figari, after he was found to have sodo-mized his recruits. The decision was announced by the Peruvian Bishops Confe-rence, which posted a statement from the Vatican embassy on its website.
The statement was astoni-shing because it listed the abuses uncovered by the Vatican investi-gation and the people responsible: It reported physical abuses “in-cluding with sadism and viol-ence,” sect-like abuses of consci-ence, spiritual abuse, abuses of authority, economic abuses in administering church money and the “abuse in the exercise of the apostolate of journalism.”
The later was presumably aimed at a Sodalitium-linked journalist who has attacked critics of the movement on social media.

In a highly anticipated report on the alleged decades long apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Medjugorje, the Vatican’s doctrinal office on 19 Sept. endorsed prudent devotion to Mary at the popular pilgri-mage site in Bosnia and Herze-govina yet withheld any decla-ration on whether the alleged visions are supernatural in origin.
The Sept. 19 note from the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF), signed by prefect Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández and approved by Pope Francis in an Aug. 28 audience, grants a “nihil obstat” to the spiri-tual experience at Medjugorje. The authori-tative judgment means that pilgrims may continue to visit and pray at the site, as some 40 million people from around the world have done since the apparitions allegedly first began 43 years ago.
Six children, who are now middle-aged, first reported experiencing visions of the Blessed Mother, originally on a hilltop near the rural village of Medjugorje, on June 24, 1981. The Vatican’s report notes that the remote site, formerly part of Yugoslavia, is now widely “perceived as a space of great peace, recollection, and a piety that is sincere, deep, and easily shared.”
While it offers no definitive judgment on the supernatural authenticity of the alleged apparitions, the Vatican’s report highlights the abundant good fruits that have come from Medjugorje.
“The positive fruits are most evident in the promotion of a healthy practice of a life of faith, in accordance with the tradition of the Church,” the report states.
It points to “abundant conversions, a frequent return to the sacraments (parti-cularly, the Eucharist and reconciliation), many vocations to priestly, religious, and married life, a deepening of the life of faith, a more intense practice of prayer, many reconciliations between spouses, and the renewal of marriage and family life.”
“It should be noted,” the report emphasizes, “that such experiences occur above all in the context of pilgrimages to the places associated with the original events rather than in meetings with the ‘visionaries’ to be present for the alleged apparitions.”
Fernández presented the report in a two-hour-long press conference at the Holy See Press Office on Sept. 19. The prelate quoted Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’s 1985 statement that emphasized separating the question of supernatural origin from spiritual fruits.
Fernández pointed out that Ratzinger said even if modern critical thinking might question some aspects, “this doesn’t detract from the fact that those pilgrimages were fruitful, useful, important for the life of the Christian people.”
On this view, he added, Pope Francis said there was “no magic wand” to determine the authenticity of the phenomena, but “the spiritual pastoral fact cannot be denied.”

Faith leaders and climate activists in Africa announced their support on September 20 for an international treaty to halt the production and use of fossil fuels, the main cause of climate change, analogous to non-proliferation treaties governing the production of nuclear weapons.
“As people of faith, we have a moral duty to protect God’s creation,” said Ashley Kitisya, the African coordinator of the Laudato Si’ Movement, the global network of Catholics working to ameliorate climate change in the spirit of Pope Francis’ encyclical of the same name. “The Fossil Fuel Treaty gives us a tangible way to act on this duty by advocating for the preservation of our environment for future generations.”
Kitisya spoke at a media briefing organized as part of the Season of Creation, an event observed annually by Christian denominations and Christian climate activists from Sept. 1 to Oct. 4. Following the Greek Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Dimitrios’ declaration in 1989 of Sept. 1 as a day of prayer for creation, the World Council of Churches and Roman Catholic Church leaders joined the movement and sponsored prayer and action to call attention to climate change.
The 2024 theme, “To Hope and Act with Creation,” urges Christians and the world at large to reflect on what organizers say is a sacred responsibility in caring for the Earth. The Fossil Fuels Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative began in September 2022, when Vanuatu, a tiny Pacific island state, called for the negotiation of such an agreement at the U.N. General Assembly. In December of that year, Tuvalu, another state in the South Pacific, made a similar call at the plenary of the United Nations Climate Change Conference.
Since then, momentum has grown, with the Vatican, the European Parliament and 101 Nobel Laureates endorsing it. “We are making progress, but there is still so much work to be done. We must continue to build momentum, to engage more communities of faith, and to push for governments and international bodies to recognize the urgent need for this treaty,” said Kitisya.